TVs and sex – what’s the dish?

India, confronted with dire overpopulation warnings, has responded that the answer is…television. Forget the campaign promise of a chicken in every pot – India’s Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad is promising a boob-tube in every boudoir.

So is there any data to support his claim that televisions will reduce population growth? Will a night of Married With Children terminate the urge to reproduce?

So is India planning a parents-bedroom-only TV sweeps month whose theme is abstinence? (next on CSI: Withdrawal). After all, why isn’t the land of fab Bollywood productions already watching Simon Cowell as much as we are?

The fact is, in India’s population-exploding rural areas, there’s no electricity. That’s right – none. And, TV or no TV, bringing electricity to rural areas might actually make a dramatic change in the lives of women hauling firewood and slamming clothes against rocks. Improving the economic power and rights of women, particularly in third world countries, is the one thing proven over and over in numerous studies in many different countries, to reduce population growth.

So maybe good old Minister Azad is on to something after all.

Is this a load of hooey, or do you think India is on to something with their plan to reduce population growth through boob-tubage? Share your thoughts in the comments section.